February 10, 2016: a return to sonnet 82

There was a sensation of being scattered about this day, as though everything was slightly out of focus.

The day’s visible core is the completion of sonnet 82. Well, I have already kind of completed it once, but there was a lingering feeling of uncertainty about this — and the longer it was sitting there in the corner of my studio, the louder the inner voice of the need to return to it.

The painting of this sonnet developed from a stark contrast between the god-like state of poet and his crushed, solitary state of isolated self towards a more unified view of these opposing states, their interconnectedness, even a harmony between them. This last day of painting just strengthened and clarified this unification, both in its colour and its geometry. The figure in the bottom right corner of the painting is now not a lonely victim, but also the source of the rainbow-y space. And even though the inner link between the painting and the sonnet may not be immediately apparent, the painting does rehearse the sonnet more clearly now — which is to say, when I look at it, the sonnet immediately begins to rehearse itself in my head.

There was one personal insight, one “aha-moment”, in the process of painting this sonnet. I tend to think of enlightenment, self-transcendence as the destination of a journey; the journey may be long and difficult, but once you arrive, you are “firmly” there. The vacillation between two states of consciousness in this sonnet (and in the painting) made me realise that this is not quite the right metaphor: that the choice exists within every single moment, and needs to be renewed every single moment.

And one more painting-internal event I want to remember. At one point, there was an ambivalence in my mind about the top right corner of the painting, and how to resolve it. Basically, that was the last unclear aspect of the painting; the last question to be answered.

At this moment, another sonnet, sonnet 78, started “playing” in my head instead of this one. Sonnet 78, which — in this composition of sixteen paintings — will find itself right above this one. I decided to listen to this voice, and to have a look at how these paintings are going to work together — and a clear solution suggested itself immediately.

Looking back, the development of this sonnet painting involved a gradual transformation of the rainbow — from a two-dimensional curve into a more topologically complex and mysterious space; and this slight change in the right top corner not only linked this sonnet more visibly to the one above it, but also completed this transformation.